Daniel Coyle spent the last few years traveling around the world and meeting with top coaches, teachers, and neurologists in order to unlock the secret of how greatness happens. Now he has taken his groundbreaking research and boiled it down to the essentials: 52 simple, proven rules for developing and growing talent in sports, art, music, business, or just about anything.

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Publisher's Summary

Daniel Coyle spent the last few years traveling around the world and meeting with top coaches, teachers, and neurologists in order to unlock the secret of how greatness happens. Now he has taken his groundbreaking research and boiled it down to the essentials: 52 simple, proven rules for developing and growing talent in sports, art, music, business, or just about anything.

Supported by cutting-edge science and the wisdom of some of the world’s leading trainers from a variety of fields, The Little Book of Talent explains how to make the most progress in the least amount of time by using techniques that play into the way our brains are wired to learn. It’s an indispensible handbook that every coach, teacher, manager, athlete, musician, and student will want to own.

What the Critics Say

“It’s so juvenile to throw around hyperbolic terms such as ‘life-changing,’ but there’s no other way to describe The Little Book of Talent. I was avidly trying new things within the first half hour and haven’t stopped since. Brilliant. And yes: life-changing.” (Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence)

I had first heard of Daniel Coyle on a podcast discussing his other book "The Talent Code." While researching that I stumbled upon this book, and boy did it help me.

Here's my story: I've been trying to improve on my golf game within the past year, and became progressively worse after a period of time. My frustration almost led me to quit all together. Then I listened to this book. Yes, I know how that sounds, but I must say it's true.

The book taught me what exactly "deep" practice was, and how to gain improvement within each session, no matter how small the amount. This made me think about what my own practice habits to acquire a new skill consisted of, and how I was doing it completely wrong. I was hitting as many balls as I could within an hour on the range, and not really correcting or concentrating on my mistakes. (One of the many things I'd been doing wrong)

So I started taking the advice of the book and focusing on the quality of my practice, rather than the quantity. Each mistake I made, I immediately didn't hit another ball, instead, I analyzed the mistake and swung extremely slow, essentially not even hitting the ball. A few weeks later, I was vastly improving each time I hit the range to practice. This was so relieving to me b/c I went months with little to no improvement, actually going backwards at times.

Although I did benefit from this book, I will say that utilizing some of the techniques and sticking with them requires determination and yes, HARD WORK. However, if you listen (read) intently to this book, and figure out how to apply it to the skill (mine being golf) that you're desiring to learn, then you will improve too.

I'm convinced now that talent really is overrated in some aspects. An "expert" in any field has to put in vast amounts of practice, almost to the point of being obsessed. (See the 10,000 hour rule.) While some people may have better hand/eye coordination etc., overall, becoming proficient at anything requires work. This book will teach you how to get the most out of the work you put into a new skill. Now all you (the listener/reader) have to do is ask yourself this question....HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT?

This is the book I have been looking for about how to learn faster and more effectively. Daniel Coyle offers concise, yet detailed information about how to improve your learning curve, and he manages to do this in a very short book.

I just bought this on Amazon's deal of the day for 99 cents, and that was a well-spent 99 cents. It is worth far more than that. I will be looking for more by this author, and I will probably purchase the Kindle version of this work so that I can review some of the concepts in print.

Some of the tips include how and when to use visualization techniques (non-religious), how and when to review mistakes, whether it is better to practice a work (such as a musical piece) all together or in "chunks" of material, and how to study for different types of skills. It should be noted that a lot of this advice is useful for atheletic purposes, as well.

Grover Gardiner did an excellent job with the narration. I listened at 3x speed and even then, his voice offered a good, varied cadence and he was easily understandable.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn how to acquire talent faster. This is a quick listen that will pay off in spades.

The content in this book covers numerous tips and suggestions which are extremely useful for use in countless areas of one's personal and/or business life. The practical advice contained in this book is based on real life experiences which have resulted amazing success stories.

I picked this up on an Audible Daily Deal and am glad I did. I actually read the author's longer work, The Talent Code, a couple years ago.

This book boils down the essential points of The Talent Code in an easy-to-follow numbered format.

This book will inspire you to dust off your guitar, enroll in a language class or pick up accounting. Because Coyle's premise is that talent is not is not inborn but learned. He breaks down the process of learning with suggestions for improving performance and retention. So, in the case of learning an instrument, you would want to practice for shorter bursts with 10-minute breaks in between, but going right back to it to reinforce learning.

Coyle also suggests breaking down your activity into well-honed exercises that zero in on a particular skill or a particular phrase in a musical composition. Be aware of mistakes and tackle them immediately.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the info offered in this short yet pithy read.

Coyle's research can applied to any field and any age group. It is never too late to start; and once you do, practice, practice, practice.

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